Adventures in genealogy

Where Our Ancestors were in 1808

Several weeks ago I wrote a post entitled “1808: Where was Your Family 200 Years Ago?” I wrote about my ancestors lives two hundred years ago, at least the ones that I know for sure who lived in Bavaria. This topic was inspired by the previous challenge from Lisa of 100 Years in America who asked us where our ancestors were in 1908 (read the summary here). I challenged other genea-bloggers to take up the challenge, and many did. Here are their wonderful responses:

In “1808: Residences of My Families” Lori at Smoky Mountain Family Historian tells us about her family all over the US, mostly in the South with scattered folks in New England, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. All of her ancestors were in the US 200 years ago! What impressed me the most is her distinctly American genealogy!

John at Transylvania Dutch uses a “Time Machine” to visit his ancestors in several countries including Lithuania, Poland, Transylvania, Canada, and England. Then, just in case the question is asked by other bloggers, he takes us back to visit his ancestors in New York in 1708, and back to Holland and England in 1608. Does he know where they were in 1508? Hmm, read his story to find out!

Jessica at Jessica’s Genejournal asks “1808: Where were my ancestors?” She admits to being “not completely sure”, but she’s getting close with research back to the 1820s.

Randy at Genea-Musings knows where so many of his ancestors were in 1808 that he had to write two posts to tell the whole story. His Carringer side resided in many places, including the US, Canada, and England while the Seaver side calls Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and England home.

Becky at kinexxions asks “Where were they in 1808?” Rather than list all 59 ancestors on her mother’s side and 23 on her father’s, she gives us some interesting highlights. All but three of her ancestral families were already in the United States, and most were farmers. Becky shares some interesting stories about some of these ancestors in 1808.

“Where were they in 1808” is what Bill at West in New England explains in his post, which has quite a mix of both known whereabouts and elusive folks.

Craig at Geneablogie also asks “Where were they in 1808?” He writes about the importance of that particular year for many of his families: “1808 was a signal year…That was the year that Congress banned the Atlantic slave trade from the United States.”

Tonia at Tonia’s Roots Blog has many ancestors around in 1808, so she’s writing a series of posts. So far, she recounts her “Butler Ancestors in 1808” “almost all of whom were in the western part of North Carolina, with a few in South Carolina and one in Virginia.”

“Sharon” responded in the comments of my post about her Bavarian, Polish, American, and Dutch ancestors that all eventually wound up in Chicago.

Steve from Steve’s Genealogy Blog writes “The Year was 1808” about his Polish ancestors who were scattered throughout the land including the “Przemyśl Powiat of Galicia, the Warsaw Departament of the Duchy of Warsaw, and the Vilna Guberniya of the Russian Empire.” Steve adds a nice visual with “Map My DNA” to show us where these places are on the map.

Steve’s fancy map was inspired by John at Anglo-Celtic Connections, who asks “Where has your DNA been?” John shows us his ancestors’ whereabouts in both 1808 and 1908.

Blaine at The Genetic Genealogist also asks “Where Was My Y-DNA and mtDNA in 1808?” and proceeds to show us on the map! He presents this graphical challenge “Where was YOUR mtDNA and Y-DNA in 1808?”

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this challenge – it was fascinating to see how far folks can trace their ancestry and from what areas their ancestors originated. As someone with 20th Century immigrants to America on all sides of my ancestry, I was quite impressed with the number of fellow bloggers who have what I call “American” roots! It was equally fascinating to see the mix of countries that we are all researching. If anyone responded to my 1808 challenge and I didn’t present your response here, please let me know or comment here – I tried to include all that I could find!

[…] Response to “Where Were Your Ancestors in 1808″ Posted! Donna over at What’s Past is Prologue has posted a list of all the articles that responded to the question, “Where Were Your Ancestors in 1808?” You can read the article here. […]